Dreams, Musings and Thoughts … What I Am Made Of

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Recently, I went through something I am used to – people come and people go, right? I should be able to handle this for the nth time. Well, I was wrong. And I saw how it is true – when you are breaking down inside, you vividly see how the world perfectly goes on, how people happily lives on without you, while you try to pull yourself together with all your might.

The questions come one after the other, questions most often you won’t find answers to. And slowly, the bitterness creeps in, and before you know it, darkness. I started to question things I know about, questioning God, questioning myself. Every thing is wrong, someone has to be responsible for this. I have my choices: God, me, or him. Yet I cannot choose apart from me so I point the fingers at myself and felt ever more wrong, which lead me to question God, why create me? It’s a cycle spiralling down towards a dark abyss. I know other people would have chosen differently, and maybe for some it could have been easier to blame the other person and get over with it. That was my choice, a choice which clearly shows how much self-love I have – close to zero. I am selfish, but I do not love myself. I believed I was strong and now I am demanding that strength from myself.

One truth remains and that is, in darkness, Light will shine brighter, in weakness, His strength will be magnified. Only when I shift my focus away from myself and focus on Him; only when I stop blaming myself and start loving His creation called me; only when I accept the divine help He so freely offer and has been keeping me; only when I stop trying to control and solve the situation and rely on Him; only when I start to die to self and live for Him. It is singing to God with all my heart and soul Jesus take the wheel, take it from my hand, cos I can’t do this on my own…

As of this writing, I still struggle. Yet I know, I do not struggle alone and true help comes from Him. I still have a lot to learn from St. Paul. I don’t know how to boast about my weakness. I only plead for the thorn to be taken away but to delight in the thorn is something else. Yet St. Paul clearly said, for God’s strength to rest in me, I must first boast about my weakness. I pray that I will have true strength to surrender and tell about my weakness. Lord, I am a sinner and I cannot do this alone. I’ve tried and failed and hurt myself and other people. This is just too much for me to handle.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Second letter of St. Paul to the church in Corinth 12:8-10

True strength isn’t about being sassy, sexy, independent, self-reliant and in control.

True strength doesn’t rely on self – it dies to self.

Recognizing our human frailty and leaning on Him is what makes us strong.

A woman of strength recognizes she is weak and in need of a savior. She admits her need. She knows that it’s only the good kind of weak – the humble, soft, teachable kind – that will truly make her strong.

Father, let me be the girl who trusts you so much that no matter how I feel and what my circumstances are I know You are there. Let my faith be steadfast and grounded in Your Love. Help me and strengthen me for I am too weak and always remind me to focus on You lest I speak and hurt others in my weakness.

Help me to hold my tongue and help me to conquer my insecurities with Your love. I am unworthy yet You love me. May I conquer with Your love and stop the devil’s attack with Your truth – that I am forgiven, loved and important in Your eyes.

October 19, 2018. Needed this then, need this now. Need this all the time.

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This Lent has been about crucifying and crucifying – my affections, my weaknesses, offering them to God. I wasn’t always there, doing it right, yet God is patient and is keeping me.

On the drive, what I thought was people leaving me and people making life hard for me was simply my wanting to please people and my affection making things hard for me and that God do really keep people away from me not because they’re not good or that I wasn’t good but simply because God wants me to learn what it means that HE IS ENOUGH, and to understand how relationship works, that I do not need people to like me or talk to me to validate who I am or my worth because my worth is found in Him alone – something that I know yet fails to live by.

When I live in this worth, of being found in Christ, there is peace and joy. Admittedly at times I still falter and wish for affirmation, validation, confirmation from other people – habits are hard to break. Yet I pray that slowly God will help me overcome all these affection that I may love fully and find love also in full.

The overwhelming love of God for an unworthy being – me. He initiated the love, and in response, what have I done? I run towards it, and then shrink away from it with my sins. I plunge into its amazingness and then withdraw and drown in my own misery. It’s like that scene in Tangled where Rapunzel was finally out of the tower and she was celebrating her freedom one moment then feeling bad another moment. Yet for me it’s celebrating how God has freed me and then going back to sinning then feeling bad for sinning. And all the time, God looks at me with love and mercy, waiting for me to realise what I’ve been doing and return to Him. That immeasurable patience God has for me, I have no words.

If only letting go and letting God is easily done as it is being said (in a span of few seconds). Experience has taught me, and most would agree, that it is not the case. I happened to read on this verse from Romans 3:23-25 last night and dived into the grace of God. I knew that grace is God’s gift – God’s mercy, my salvation and the promise of eternal life. Amazing, amazing grace. However, last night led me deeper into what grace is and I encountered these words telling me to guard this grace, to use it wisely and make it increase. How?

A season of coming. Expectation. Longing. Waiting. A call to be vigilant and awake, to wake up from slumber and to be on the watch. And yet the weather just makes you want to cuddle up with someone or with your blanket and take a nice warm sleep.

God is not asking us not to take our naps or sleep physically, obviously. He created sleep for our bodies to recharge and regenerate. To stay awake and not to slumber is a call for our hearts to be on the watch and more vigilant than in any other season because God is coming and He will surely come in a time we never expect. Just so happen, advent is also a season of busy-ness, holiday rush, deadlines at work, ending the fiscal year, decorating homes, attending gatherings and dinners, holiday shopping – there are just too many things to do that our Lord is asking us to guard our hearts, our thoughts and our bodies lest all these to-do take over the yearning of our soul – the longing of the soul to see and recognize our Saviour. That, for me, is to stay awake, to be vigilant, to be extra watchful.

I struggle in this season – concerns flood my mind and things happening around me affects me easily. While the Christmas cheer rings around me, my heart moves along a roller-coaster that seems to drop farther than it lifts. Outside it seems well, inside it’s a battle. I grapple to hold on to something, anything, to keep my head above the water, to come to terms with events in my life, to understand the unknown (which is insane, I know) and to stay awake and keep watch for the Lord’s coming.

If there is one thing I am grateful to God, it is that He created me with a stubborn heart, very stubborn! Some may think that is not a positive thing, but in this moment, it is for my good – that I refuse to let evil take over me, that I refuse to accept the lies of the devil in my life – to just drop everything and not fight because it’s futile, lies! So I fight by surrendering and dying, in silence I fight and hope in the midst of confusion, in this waiting. All these things I have no strength to do by myself, so I do the only thing I can and am asked to do – PRAY. Even when at times I don’t understand my prayers anymore or the text I’m reading or what I am even telling God or that I need to rush because I’m running late for work. In His faithfulness, He keeps me here in the waiting. In my tears, He listens. With every breaking of my heart, He picks up the pieces.

Advent is a season of expectation for His coming and this year I see that the Lord also looks at me and waits for me to approach Him in humility and surrender, and meets me in this very situation to walk with me.

We speak about the cross, about carrying our crosses, about laying down our worries at the feet of the cross. The cross – the symbol of His infinite and unfailing love.

I stand beneath Your cross and I look up, I see Love, my sins, my unworthiness, and my redemption. And then I look at the empty tomb – Love fulfilled. The tomb of my sins washed clean. The tomb of my failures, gone. Your resurrection is my Hope fulfilled.

The cross, Your Love. The empty tomb, Your victory.
The cross, my salvation. The empty tomb, my Hope.
The cross, a reminder of the life in this world. The empty tomb, a reminder of heaven.

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Previously I have called Lent the “white space”, the “white noise” of God, the period where winter turns to spring and it becomes cold and eerily quiet, it’s beautiful yet eerie. This time, the battle rages on but our God is ever faithful.

I have been struggling internally with all the emotions and delusions I have – of the deceit and lies the devil feeds my mind. I am unwanted, I am alone, I am made to be alone in this world, I will not find love, I will forever be left behind – name the lies, the enemy has it. Yet, God, in His loving mercy and almightiness knew beforehand what will happen and has sent forth the weapons and help for me. Well, He could have just stopped it but He didn’t, like with Job’s story. And as for me, I could let the enemy fill me with lies and not use the weapons God has been providing me.

Yet here we are, here I am. Faced with all these lies and deceit, God has been feeding me with my dose of Daily Bread, with His Word of Truth and Mercy. It’s not easy, it sounds Continue reading →

Never under estimate the power of a prayer. At times, we need to look outside of ourselves to see how God works His wonders. We tend to concentrate too much on our needs (humanly speaking) without realising the spiritual need that God is fulfilling in each of us every moment. We tend to think that our prayers, to be fulfilled, has to be met in our conditions, yet God’s thoughts is not ours to fathom. And in His great mercy, He doesn’t meet our conditions but always provide us our specific needs.

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To be used by God to help others is not a cause for us to boast but it is humbling and unworthy of us to play a part in salvation’s history and what a grace that He finds us to do His will.

Even if we disregard the prompting of the Spirit, the other’s prayer will be answered in His ways beyond what we can imagine. Yet to be able to follow the prompting of the Spirit is not by our own strength but that which the grace that God gives us, the heart that He molds and moves.

All prayers are effective as God hears them and He moves heaven and earth to fulfil His will.

When I need some distraction from thoughts I cannot run away from; when I want a companion who doesn’t judge and just let me listen because at times I have no words left to say; when I want perspectives and life-lessons given me without even the hint of trying hard and or justification – I pick up a book and read. And I am always amazed at the things I get out of it. The things speaking right at me, telling me what I need to hear. That when I put down one, I have the sense of a renewed mind and spirit.

The books we read, that we pick up, matter. And it is as important to pray for those that we read as praying for other necessities in life. Because what we read affects us, influences us, changes us. May God lead us to more literature that will help us become better and not bitter, at peace and not tempted, joyful and not depressed, informed and not deluded.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

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So you should pray like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
may your name be held holy,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread,
And forgive us our debts,
as we have forgiven those who are in debts to us.
And do not put us to the test,
but save us from the evil one.”

– Matthew 6:9-13

And this is how we ought to pray. Not by memorizing the Lord’s prayer but by truly understanding what it meant.

To declareHis glory and to make known His love; to submit to His will; to ask not only for the daily provisions of life but for the bread of life as well – the Word of God, the presence of Jesus in our lives; to forgive others and acknowledge that we are sinners and humbly lay down our sins at the feet of the cross; to pray for strength for we know that our flesh is weak; to acknowledge our salvation.

When we find it in our hearts struggling to submit to His will, or to forgive – let us pray for these struggles because we are weak and He is strong. Let us not depend on our strength but rely on His. And in times we do not know what to pray, or when we even cannot utter a single word to pray, a tear drop is a prayer that the Lord fully comprehend. A deep sigh from a tired soul, a silence, a sob from a broken heart – all these and more the Lord sees and hears as our prayers.

The Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words, and God who knows everything in our heart knows perfectly well what he means, and that the pleas of the saints expressed by the Spirit are according to the mind of God.

How often have we knelt down and prayed for God to give us this and that, to grant us our desires and wishes? And how often have we judged God’s faithfulness base on whether He has given in to our desires and wishes? Do we ever realize that most of our prayers, if not all, revolve around asking God to do things for us and grant our wishes, like He is some genie under our command? It is good to realize that, and it is good to stop ourselves whenever we realize we are doing that. Praying with our flesh will lead us to pray for things to satisfy the flesh, but praying with the Spirit will lead us to converse and communicate with God and to pray for things that God desires for us.

Today, there is a prayer/sayings of Agur from the book of Proverbs that moved me.

“Two things I ask of you, Lord;do not refuse me before I die:Keep falsehood and lies far from me;give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.Otherwise, I may have too much and disown youand say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ Or I may become poor and steal,and so dishonor the name of my God. ~ Proverbs 30:5-8

To ask God for what is needed for the day, enough for the day. More than that, I am moved by his awareness of his human nature – the frailty of our nature because of carnal desires. To have enough – no more, no less. Let us pray for our daily bread, DAILY – enough comfort, enough trials. And be led by the Spirit to ask God for His will, to work His will in to our hearts, to attain true peace and joy. (:

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I posted before an entry about asking, seeking and knocking. It talks about praying, asking God and working with Him. Here’s another one about praying that we all must be aware.

I’ve heard it often – “I’ve been praying but it’s not being given. I’ve been asking and knocking on God’s door but He’s not answering me…” – something along those lines. I’ve even heard worse, that God is not just, that how could God allow such evil and not hear his prayer of justice, that how could God let the wicked triumph, to the point that some would mock and ridicule God’s goodness and mercy. It’s painful to hear when people question God’s authority and talk like God can be right or wrong in His decisions just because what a person want was not given to him.

I would often reply with silence, with a smile or a simple phrase – “in God’s time.” And only God knows when that is. Safest answer, I guess. I’m not very much into debating with people about God’s purpose in their lives, but I can write about it, I’d write them letters if that’s a way to get through them.

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Having this theme, Exile, for the second time makes me appreciate it even more. To have God’s Word laid out in front of me is such a treasure. If the first time I swam in it, this time I’m diving in to it. There is so much more to reveal, to know, to proclaim, and so much glory found in His Works, His Plans.

Lord, sustain me, sustain us! Cos, we can become tired and then lazy to move after a day’s work… sustain us to move our butts, lift up that book, the Bible and the pen, and read into Your message. And prepare us, the group, for all that You are going to reveal in this theme.

Confession: I am struggling to keep my eyes open as of this writing… so my mind’s debating whether lunch break is for nap time or reading. 😛